He was widely travelled, exceptionally intelligent, and given to playfulness, living with hardly a trace of restraint.
King ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Tāshfīn ordered his execution, so he was slaughtered in the caravanserai of Marrakesh in 535 AH. Others say it occurred in 529 AH (1)—and Allah knows best.
66 – Bahjat al-Mulk ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣūrī
The eminent dignitary, Abū Ṭālib ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn Abī ʿAqīl al-Ṣūrī, later known as al-Dimashqī.
His forefathers had served as judges in Tyre. He himself was a venerable, awe-inspiring, and devout shaykh.
In Egypt he studied under al-Qāḍī al-Khilāʿī, and in Baghdad under Abū al-Qāsim ibn Bayān. Among those who narrated from him are Ibn ʿAsākir (2), his son al-Qāsim, and a number of others.
Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī said: “I read to him the Muʿjam of Ibn al-Aʿrābī.” He was born in Tyre a little after 460 AH.
Ibn ʿAsākir added: “His family originated from Harran, he heard hadith from the jurist Naṣr, and he was…"